This invention relates to special purpose calculators, and especially those using dedicated electronic components, which are either hard wired or soft wired to perform the dedicated purpose of the calculator. This invention further relates to those types of special purpose calculators which are dedicated to be used in playing card games, such as blackjack.
In the past, there have been blackjack games, blackjack game simulators and blackjack game strategy teaching devices. Blackjack teaching devices include the mechanical scroll type device shown by Tammone, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,924,340. This device has a rotating mechanical scroll member within a rectangular viewing stand. This rectangular viewing stand contains seven windows on its top face, these windows extending across the center portion of this top face in a straight line to display pre-printed information on the scroll. The scroll has a specific predetermined number of dealer and player card combinations printed thereon and requires active participation by the user in interpreting the information in connection with a plurality of labels placed on the top face of the display adjacent the viewing windows.
Kucera, U.S. Pat. No. 3,689,071, shows a blackjack simulator which is a combination slide viewer board game for playing a series of blackjack games from a specific plurality of predetermined card draw simulator.
A programmable television game for teaching the card game of blackjack is shown by Inose et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 4,156,928. This device includes a main control module which is operated under the instructions of a computer program (software) stored in a user tape cassette. The ouput from the control module drives a television which is used as a display device. The user cassette cartridge contains a specific predetermined game play sequence which operates according to a program flow chart. This program is written in BASIC programming language.
A teaching device adapted for the game of blackjack is shown by Feldheim in U.S. Pat. No. 3,962,800. This is an electronic device having a random number generator for the selection of hands stored in memory. Also stored in memory is a corresponding ideal player response for the hand. The circuitry in this device teaches game response by testing a player's response against a stored ideal response.
Like Feldheim, Macheel, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,339,134, shows an electronic blackjack game simulator. Macheel adapts his game into a portable hand held calculator sized apparatus. The Macheel electronic game conducts a simulated blackjack game by "dealing" cards randomly from a full fifty-two card deck of simulated cards. A player entry keyboard is used to enter both numerical money bets and the standard blackjack instructions to the dealer, i.e. "hit", "stand" or "bet". The display provides an output to the player showing a win or a loss of the hand and his total dollar winnings.
Unlike any of the above, Miller in U.S. Pat. No. 4,052,073 shows an electronic decision maker for playing blackjack. The dealer up card and player card count are entered and a strategy or prompt output of "stand", "double down", "hit" or "split" is provided by the energizing, on an exclusive basis, one of four signal lights on the face of the device. The device includes a 38 key keyboard which requires the player to make a decision on the type of play situation. The keyboard is divided into four rows of keys, three rows of which have identical indicia. The first of these three rows of keys is used to input the dealer's up card. The second, third and fourth row of keys are used depending upon the decision made by the player to input the value of the player's first and second dealt cards once an "odds" determination is made by the player himself. Particularly, the second row of keys is used, exclusively, if the player has a pair; the third row is used, exclusively, if the player determines that he has a "soft" count; and the fourth row is used, exclusively, if the player determines two cards he has a "hard" count.
Miller also shows an alternate keyboard configuration. This keyboard has 20 keys to enter the value of the dealer's up card and the player's two cards . It is also used to enter the player's analytical opinion as to a "soft" or "hard" count.
Miller uses a plurality of switching circuits, to provide his signal light output. These circuits operate according to the truth table disclosed as Table I. This table deals with a certain limited combination of and specific sequences of dealer card draws and player card draws.
What is desired is an electronic device which is capable of actively calculating prompts to a player playing a blackjack game. This device should calculate a proper player response for any input of dealer and player cards. It should then provide an instantaneous decision prompt signal to the blackjack player. What is further desired is that the entire apparatus have a simple display and entry keyboard and that the entire device be housed within a wristwatched sized encasement.
An object of the present invention is to provide a wristwatch sized game calculator which is capable of receiving only entries for the dealer up card and the palyer draw cards and for calculating a strategy decision prompt to the player as the result of said entries without requiring player decision making.
A further object of the invention is to provide this calculator with memory capacity for separately keeping track of a plurality of cards drawn to the player in each of two hands when a "split" hand is played.
A further object of this invention is to reset the device to an initial start or clear condition once a hand is played thereby starting the decision or strategy calculation process anew.
An even further object of this invention is to provide a simple output display and a simple input keyboard.